The Story of Julia Page Part 34

"And I shouldn't be afraid of death," murmured Julia, staring up at the stars. "Strange--strange--strange that we all must go that way some day!" she mused.

"Well, please G.o.d, we'll do some living first," Jim said, with healthy antic.i.p.ation. "We'll go to New York, and gad about, and go to Was.h.i.+ngton and Boston, and pick up things here and there for the house, do you see?

Then we'll come back here and go to a hotel, and find a house and fix it up!"

"That'll be fun," said Julia.

"You bet your life it'll be fun! And then, my dear, we'll give some corking dinners, and my beautiful wife will wear blue velvet, or white lace, or peachy silk--"

"Or all three together," the prospective wife suggested, "with the flags of all nations in my hair!"

"Then next year we'll visit old Gilchrist, at Monterey, and go up to Tahoe," continued Jim, unruffled. "Or we could take some place in Ross--"

"And then I will give a small and select party for one guest," said Julia whimsically, "and board him, free, for fifteen or twenty years--"

"Julia, you little _duck_!" Jim bent his head over her in the starlight, and felt her soft hair brush his face, and caught the glint of her laughing eyes close to his own, and the vague delicious little perfume of youth and beauty and radiant health that hung about her. "Do you know that you are as cunning as a sa.s.sy kid?" he demanded. "Now, kiss me once and for all, and no nonsense about it, for I can hear the others coming back!"

Two days later they were married, very quietly, in the little Church of Saint Charles Borromeo, where Julia's father and mother had been married a quarter of a century ago. They had "taken advantage," as Julia said, of her old grandfather's death, and announced that because the bride's family was in mourning the ceremony would be a very quiet one. Even the press was not notified; the Tolands filled two pews, and two more were filled by Julia's mother, her grandmother, and cousins. Kennedy Scott Marbury and her husband were there, and st.u.r.dy two-year-old Scott Marbury, who was much interested in this extraordinary edifice and impressive proceeding, but there were no other witnesses. Julia wore a dark-blue gown, and a wide black hat whose lacy brim cast a most becoming shadow over her lovely, serious face. She and Miss Toland drove from the settlement house, and stopped to pick up Mrs. Page, who was awed by Julia's dignity, and a little resentful of the way in which others had usurped her place with her daughter. However, Emeline had very wisely decided to make the best of the situation, and treated Miss Toland with stiff politeness. Julia was in a smiling dream, out of which she roused herself, at intervals, for only a gentle, absent-minded "Yes"

or "No."

"I tried to persuade her to be married at the Cathedral, by His Grace,"

said Miss Toland to Mrs. Page. "But she wanted it this way!"

"Well, I'm sure she feels you've done too much for her as it is,"

Emeline said mincingly. "Now she must turn around and return some of it!"

To this Miss Toland made no answer except an outraged snort, and a closer pressure of her fine, bony hand upon Julia's warm little fingers.

They presently reached the church, and Julia was in Barbara's hands.

"You look lovely, darling, and your hat is a dream!" said Barbara, who looked very handsome herself, in her brown suit and flower-trimmed hat.

"We go upstairs, I think. Jim's here, nervous as a _fish_. You're wonderful--as calm! I'd simply be in spasms. Ted was awful; you'd think she had been married every day, but Robert--his collar was _wilted_!"

They had reached the upper church now, and Miss Toland and Mrs. Page followed the girls down the long aisle to the altar. Julia saw her little old grandmother, in an outrageous flowered bonnet, and Evelyn who was a most successful modiste now, and Marguerite, looking flushed and excited, with her fat, apple-faced young husband, and three lumpy little children. Also her Aunt May was there, and some young people: Muriel, who was what Evelyn had been at fifteen, and a toothless nine-year-old Regina, in pink, and some boys. On the other side were the elegant Tolands, the dear old doctor in an aisle seat, with his hands, holding his eye-gla.s.ses and his handkerchief, fallen on either knee; Ted lovely in blue, Constance and Jane with Ned and Mrs. Ned, frankly staring.

As Julia came down the aisle, with a sudden nervous jump of her heart, she saw Jim and Richie, who was limping badly, but without his crutch, come toward her. The old priest came down the altar steps at the same time. She and Jim listened respectfully to a short address without hearing a word of it, and found themselves saying the familiar words without in the least sensing them. Julia battled through the prayer with a vague idea that she was losing a valuable opportunity to invoke the blessing of G.o.d, but unable to think of anything but the fact that the bride usually walked out of church on the groom's arm, and that St.

Charles's aisle was long and rather dismal in the waning afternoon light.

"Here, darling, in the vestry!" Jim was whispering, smiling his dear, easy, rea.s.suring smile as he guided her to the nearby door. And in a second they were all about her, her first kiss on the wet cheek of Aunt Sanna, the second to her mother--"Evelyn, you were a darling to come way across the city, and Marguerite, you were a darling to bring those precious angels"--and then the old doctor's kiss, and Richie's kiss, and a pressure from his big bony fingers. Julia half knelt to embrace little Scott Marbury. "He's beautiful, Kennedy; no wonder you're proud!" And she tore her beautiful bunch of roses apart, that each girl might have a few.

"I've got to get her to the train!" Jim protested presently, trying patiently to disengage his wife's hands, eyes, and attention. "Julia!

Julia Studdiford!"

"Yes, I know!" Julia laughed, and was s.n.a.t.c.hed away, half laughing and half in tears, and hurried down to the side street, where a carriage was waiting. And here there was one more delay: Chester c.o.x, a thin shambling figure, came forward from a shadowy doorway, and rather timidly held out his hand.

"I couldn't get away until jest now," said Chester. "But of course I wish you luck, Julia!"

"Why, it's my uncle!" Julia said, cordially clasping his hand. "Mr.

c.o.x--Doctor Studdiford. I'm so glad you came, Chess!"

"Glad to know you, Mr. c.o.x," Jim said heartily.

"And I brought you a little present; it ain't much, but maybe you can use it!" mumbled Chester, terribly embarra.s.sed, and with a nervous laugh handing Julia a rather large package somewhat flimsily wrapped and tied.

"Oh, thank you!" Julia said gratefully. And before she got in the carriage she put her hand on Chester's arm, and raised her fresh, exquisite little face for a kiss.

"Now, about this--" Doctor Studdiford began delicately, glancing at Chester's gift, which Julia had given him to hold. "I wonder if it wouldn't be wise to ask your uncle to send this to my mother's until we get back, Ju. You see, dear--"

"Oh, no-no!" Julia said eagerly, leaning out of the carriage, and taking the package again. She sent Chester a last bright smile, as Jim jumped in and slammed the door, but it was an April face that she turned a second later to her husband.

"They're all so good to me, and it just breaks my heart!" she said.

"At last--it's all over--and you belong to me!" exulted Jim. "I have been longing and _longing_ for this, just to be alone with you, and have you to myself. Are you tired, sweetheart?"

"No-o. Just a little--perhaps."

"But you do love me?"

"Oh, Jim--you idiot!" Julia slipped her hand into his, as he put one arm about her, and rested against his shoulder. "When I think that I will often ride in carriages," she mused, half smiling, "and that, besides being my Jim, you are a rich man, it makes me feel as if I were Cinderella!"

"You shall have your own carriage if you want it, p.u.s.s.y!" he smiled.

"Oh, don't--don't give me anything more," begged Julia, "or a clock somewhere will strike twelve, and I'll wake up in The Alexander, with the Girls' Club rehearsing a play!"

When she had examined every inch of her Pullman drawing-room, and commented upon one hundred of its surprising conveniences, and when her smart little travelling case, the groom's gift, had been partly unpacked, and when her blue eyes had refreshed themselves with a long look at the rolling miles of lovely San Mateo hills, then young Mrs.

Studdiford looked at her Uncle Chester's wedding gift. She found a brush and comb and mirror in pink celluloid, with roses painted on them, locked with little bra.s.s hasps into a case lined with yellow silk.

"Look, Jim!" said Julia pitifully, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

"Gos.h.!.+" said the doctor thoughtfully, looking over the coat he was neatly arranging on a hanger. "I've often wondered who buys those things!"

"I'll give it to the porter," Julia decided. "He may like it. Dear old Chess!" And Jim grinned indulgently a few minutes later at the picture of his beautiful little wife enslaving the old coloured porter, and gravely discussing with him the advantages and disadvantages of his work.

"You know, we could have our meals in here, Ju," Jim suggested. "Claude here"--all porters were "Claude" to Jim--"would take care of us, wouldn't you, Claude?"

"Dat I would!" said Claude with husky fervour. But Julia's face fell.

"Oh, Jim! But it would be such fun to go out to the dining-car!" she pleaded.

Jim shouted. "All right, you baby!" he said. "You see, my wife's only a little girl," he explained. "She's--are you eight or nine, Julia?"

"She sho' don't look more'n dat," Claude gallantly a.s.sured them, as he departed.

"I'll be twenty-four on my next birthday," Julia said thoughtfully, a few moments later.

"Well, at that, you may live three or four years more!" Jim consoled her. "Do you know what time it is, Loveliness? It's twenty minutes past six. We've been married exactly two hours and twenty minutes. How do you like it?"

"I love it!" said Julia boldly. "Do I have to change my dress for dinner?"

"You do not."